She'd be lying if she claimed that she'd not had similar thoughts, of saving someone, anyone, had she been given the choice. Collette hadn't. Nor had any part of her friends left behind been the sort to really pull someone through like that -- Collette's not sure Caesar went back to Paramjit, though she suspected he had.

It's another young girl, whose only crime had ever been to live in a free, difficult country. Only this one's alive.

Collette's gaze lingers with that thought. When she looks to Stan, she just smiles. "Official lists are boring anyway," she comments. "And my guess is if she's stuck with you long-term, you'll want to look into finding anyone familiar with speech therapy. Just the one ear?" She wonders if her equilibrium might be off, too, but she hadn't seemed to find moving around too awkward. Were the two related? She's not sure.

What she doesn't say are her other thoughts: how, why, what if she disappears and it's because we've changed the past and she's never been born? Those aren't thoughts she wants to feed Stan, no matter how often she's had them. No matter living through times where people she knew had been written right out of history.

Thinking like that would drive anyone crazy.